NFL Notes: Joe Mixon, 49ers, Panthers, Saints

Joe Mixon

Oklahoma RB Joe Mixon mentioned in an interview with Pro Football Talk that he re-lives the incident in which he punched a female student every day and wishes he could take it all back.

“I made a bad decision,” Mixon said. “Ever since that night I have to live with it. I’ve got to re-live it every day. You can never forget something like that. It still haunts me to this day, but it’s what you do from that point on. You can’t take it back. I can replay it in my head a thousand times, and if I could take it back I would, but I can’t.”

Mixon added that he’s now focused on trying to educate younger people to not make the same mistakes.

“I’m trying to educate youth throughout the community and having them learn from my mistakes,” Mixon said.

Draft analyst Mike Mayock explained that not being at the Scouting Combine may actually help Mixon.

“Remember Michael Sam?” Mayock told Peter King of TheMMQB.com. “For him, it was a circus at the combine. Here is what I think is going on, and it’s worth a conversation. I almost think it’s an advantage Mixon won’t be there. He won’t get poked and prodded from 5 in the morning to midnight for two days at the combine. He won’t deal with all the questions from all the teams. We know Joe Mixon is gonna be in the NFL next year. Tyreek Hill went in the fifth round last year, after all his trouble in college, and the Chiefs got away with one, and he’s been clean off the field since the draft. Every team will vet him.”

49ers

49ers GM John Lynch indicated that they could be open to trading their No. 2 overall pick and moving back this year.

“We could stay pat right there and find a fabulous player, a game-changing player,” Lynch said, via SFGate.com. “It gives us a lot of flexibility to do some other things if we chose to be bold. There are going to be people that covet the pick we have, so there’s going to be some people that want to move up.”

Panthers

• Joe Person of the Charlotte Observer believes the Panthers would have “little to lose” by re-signing veteran DE Charles Johnson to something similar to the one-year, $3 million deal he got last season.
• Person also believes bringing back DE Julius Peppers could make sense for both parties.

Saints

• Nick Underhill points out that if the Saints wanted, they could free up close $6 million of cap room by converting some roster bonuses to signing bonuses for players such as LT Terron Armstead, C Max Unger and RT Zach Strief.